Mets News Top Stories- April 8, 2009

The Mets endured one of the dreaded road days off yesterday in Cincinnati. If you’ve ever been there you know that its not one of the most exciting cities in the United States. The reports were that the most entertaining thing that the Mets could find to do yesterday was go to the movies. Apparently, the city is so boring that they decided to do a double feature and kill the whole day at the movies. If that’s not an indictment of a boring city, I don’t know what is. The Mets chance to enjoy the entertaining city of Cincinnati comes to an end today when they go back to work against the Reds.

Onto today’s top stories:

The Sporting News is reporting that Bronson Arroyo will start for the Reds against the Mets tomorrow. He’s been suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome but he had a cortisone shot and is feeling good enough to pitch. Micah Owings was going to take his place in the Reds rotation.

Ben Shipgel of The New York Times recounts the whole Ryan Church concussion saga from last season. He talks about how the Gary Sheffield signing will impact Church’s playing time. Shipgel says he can’t understand why the Mets are pushing Church so hard this season. It’s simple… They expect more from him than what they’re getting. The Mets think Church is capable of doing more than he’s shown.

Joel Sherman of the NY Post talks about the Mets bullpen and how Daniel Murphy and Ryan Church both played well on Monday. The Sheffield signing could push both of them to step up their games or lose playing time.

Saturday’s game against the Marlins won’t be televised for the first hour of the game. It’s scheduled to start at 6:10 pm because there’s a concert by rap star Flo Rida after the game. SNY is scheduled to broadcast the game but Fox has exclusive rights on Saturday’s until 7:05 pm.

Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated writes another column about how Mike Pelfrey and other young pitchers are at risk of injury or regression in performance because of their increased innings pitched at a young age. At this point, Verducci is pretty much making a living off of this theory of his that most major league teams don’t subscribe to. I’m not saying that Verducci is wrong about this. But he needs to find another topic to write about. He’s beating a dead horse now. We all know about his grand theory about young pitchers. Move on now Tom.